This is supposed to be a Japanese girl who's country is in a war (I mean, there's no war in the picture, if you haven't noticed...); She's wearing her father's war hat she'd received about a year ago after he died. Her mother had died about five years before her father did from a cancer (She didn't die from cancer, a fever had sped up the process), so she's all alone. She's currently living in a small shack close to the edge of a forest (There isn't really much... a few clothes, some fire crackers, dwindling money, maybe some excess silverware), close to where her Grandmother's house is (Sadly, her grandmother's also dead... She doesn't know about her grandfather though, whether he's dead or not...), where she can use her old firewood for cold nights.
Anyhoozle, she's now maybe a mile away from her home, in her old, worn kimono. She's taken a fire cracker (She has twelve left after this one) to the shores of a calm beach; Every year she's decided to come here to honor her mother, father, and grandmothers' deaths. She watches the firecracker as it's dwindling beauty slowly swallows itself until nothing is left, not even a string.
Here, her soul finds peace; seeing the firecracker spark and flitter, she realizes that even though it dies out soon after it's lit, it was beautiful while it lasted and she greatly enjoyed the sparkles and swirls. She feels like she'll finally be able to deal with her family's death and survive the war.
---
When back at her shelter, and stripping off her kimono, laying down onto the unforgivingly cold splintering floor, a siren blares to life a long way off from her current location. She curls herself into a tight ball and hides defensively under a shredded blanket. The ground suddenly shakes as bombs bombard the ground, reminding her of the shaking earth when soldiers march erectly to their deaths.
Sighing, she clamps her eyes shut, desperate to tumble into sleep. This was nothing new to her: bombs shattering he ground around her. She'd even managed to numb herself to most of the agonizing screams around her. She didn't even care of her own life, whether she died or not.
Suddenly, the brittle door to her shack burst open and a scraggly, panicked boy, about three years younger than her, thrust himself onto the ground and cried out in pain. The girl sat up, gaping at the tiny figure huddled in front of her. When neither of them moved, the boy shakily raised his head to look to the girl. Her expression didn’t change, her eyes frozen on his.
The boy let out a huge whoosh of air he’d been holding. When he opened his mouth to say something, a shrill whistling echoed around the walls, then the air quivered. The girl knew what was coming.
“Common! Get over here!” She sat up to her knees and reached her arms out to him. The boy didn’t argue, he only sprung to her side. The girl wrapped her arms protectively around his feeble body, pulling him tightly to her chest, letting his tears douse her naked shoulder.
When the bomb connected with the ground, the blast almost wracked their eardrums to near deafness. Both of them threw themselves face-down upon the rotten wood floor, an automatic reaction. Neither of the children could tell where the bomb had landed, they only knew they had to stay down or else the forceful power of the flames and explosion would wipe their skin from their bones.
A long minute past before either of them looked up again. The cruel scene stole their breaths as they gaze upon the rubble surrounding them now. Half of the shack had been crumbled into ashes, whereas the other parts littered the nearby ground, surrounding the children with homeless promise.
The girl didn’t feel phased by what had happened. She actually wished the blast would have killed her; she wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. That’s when she remembered the small boy within her grasp. She pulled him away from her so she could look at his face. His eyes no longer trembled, his entire body vibrated as if his bones were enduring an earthquake.
She could think of nothing comforting to say, so all she felt she should do was encircle him and pull him closer to her, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
A sudden wracking pain jolted her from reality and she collapsed upon the shattered floorboards, writhing on her stomach. Her back felt as if it were on fire.
She didn’t cry out when she noticed blood pooling around her body, flooding over her shoulders. That actually calmed her down. She spared a glance up to the boy, who was now inching away on his bottom, his chin quivering and his eyes bulging.
On her last few moments of living, the girl did nothing more but shift into a more comfortable position, soften her eyes, and reach a trusting hand out towards the boy. For her final words, she whispered, “I will watch over you; don’t be afraid, little one.” And then she left her head fall into her own blood, a smile frozen to her lips just like how the moon was frozen to the sky.
—
27 Years had past since a small girl had died in a successful attempt to save my life. A bomb had exploded over her shelter, and she protected me with her body. I still remember her reaching desperately towards me in her final seconds. He remembered blood trickling from her mouth as she vowed to protect him from harm.
When she passed away, I was so scared; I didn’t want to end up in a bloody mesh of agony and sorrow. The only thing I had to be grateful for is that her death didn’t pass by unnoticed. I knew. I was the only one who had witnessed it. I was the only one who cared.
I wish I would have known her name at least. This loving, giving girl. I would be dead without her. She had traded places to fall within death’s door with a complete stranger. This knowledge warms me, comforts me.
I flexed my hands, smiling lightly at the memory. The girl had also died with a smile. I remember it clearly, how the warmth in the gesture had touched her eyes and my heart. I won’t ever let myself forget that.
I closed my eyes and sat down upon the old cracked step of the rubble, where the bomb had whizzed to the earth with cruel promise. Before I knew it, I’d dozed off in that site, that dreadful site.
And even though the memories were cruel, and the cause mortifying, the dream I endured was welcome; I felt the girl wrap her golden arms around my shoulders as she’d done so many years ago, her angel wings flicking in silver light, casting crystalized rainbows... Yet the most beautiful effect of all was her companionate smile, encouraging a well rest and an eternal love of which hadn’t died over so many years, even if we were apart... Her memory lived on within me, her love for me... and that’s a miracle within my life I wish not to forget... not even when I die too, and follow in her footsteps to heaven and dance into the eternal starlight and let our love adorn the welcoming universe.
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